


Decimus

by bee_kind



Series: House of Sen [1]
Category: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Genre: Ancestor Worship, Gen, Jupiter Ascending OC Project - Freeform, Polyamory, Space capitalism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-13
Updated: 2015-05-02
Packaged: 2018-03-22 16:11:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 2,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3735232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bee_kind/pseuds/bee_kind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daedalus Sen lived ten times. </p><p>((Work for the Jupiter Ascending OC Project))</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Primus: Daedalus Sen

**Author's Note:**

> If this seems Mary-Sueish, it's because this character has been left completely unedited or refined. Just look up the Jupiter Ascending OC project on tumblr.

**  
**Her family wasn’t well-known, hardly anything to look twice at. In the vast webs of Ourosian noble families, they sat in the lowest tenth. They were practically common. Their wealth was minimal, their planetary holdings were none. They were not popular in the senate.  
  
The Sen family was in all ways unremarkable.  
  
And Daedalus was fine with it.   
  
She did not attend the lavish soirees of her contemporaries -she was not invited- and spent little more than one hundred credits on anything -her family didn’t have the money- but she was happy. She was so content with her life, she spent most of her time grinning from ear to ear.  
  
Because her family ranked so low -in the bottom tenth, she knew. She was constantly reminded- the purity of their line didn’t particularly matter. To them, the historical society or anyone else.   
  
She married for love.  
  
Imagine that, a member of the nobility, however low, marrying for love.   
He was the delivery boy to some backward clan from the mountains. Abrassin or Abrosass, or Abersex, something like that. They couldn’t afford to lose him. She took him anyway.  
  
She died at the ripe old age of eighty-nine, surrounded by all six of her children and their children.   
  
She did not wish for more time.  
  
She couldn’t have had more even if she’d wanted it.  
  
She was happy. **  
**


	2. Secundus: Imal Sen

And then she recurred.  
  
In that time, back when Ouros was only mildly crowded, back when people were only just beginning to venture into the stars, little was known about recurrence.  
  
It was a fairytale, and a poor one at that. Most stories had a dash of fantasy and light. Talk of recurrence left one confused and vaguely uncomfortable.   
It left Imal confused and vaguely uncomfortable.  
  
There had always been talk of how she resembled Daedalus, some far off Great-Great something or other she’d never met. Two hundred seventy-seven years in the past, and all they had left of her was the sketches and some dusty aunts and uncles who’d been small children when she’d died.   
  
Extending life had become possible, but one’s memories were still as faulty as ever. Still, they claimed the resemblance was striking. Imal never heeded them much.  
  
She joined Aegis to see the void. Her family’s top priority was service, military primarily and all the young were sent off to join up. Imal was never one for grunt work.  
  
She climbed the ranks like it was her sole purpose for existing and dominated her squadron.  
  
She left them confused and vaguely uncomfortable. The notion of a woman exceeding expectations was a foreign one, even in this time. The notion of a woman from a relatively small noble family exceeding expectations in a military setting was bizarre. They did not mention the notion of a recurrence even existing and her resemblance was kept under wraps.   
  
She continued to exceed.   
  
Imal lead her people to new planets and distant stars. They claimed and conquered and colonized.   
  
She swept stars from the sky.  
She cracked nebulae between her teeth.   
  
She set up a system seven galaxies wide for her people and all before she’d gone grey.   
  
She was the greatest hero of the Sen family, but she went out the way all those who chose to walk the path of conquerors did. Imal became too large for those around her and they feared an eclipse. They loosed the joints in one of her space craft just enough for it to fall apart in Ouros’s atmosphere.   
  
She was mourned in a thousand languages. **  
**


	3. Tertius: Rivka Sen

When Rivka came, they called her a goddess.   
  
The called her the rebirth of an Empress.  
  
They called everything but her name.   
  
Three hundred and twelve years after the death of general Imal Sen, and genetic understanding had soared to new heights, as had that of Recurrence. No longer were the born--again treated as fairy tales, but as a sacred gift from some secret higher power hidden within their genetic code. They knew now, with all certainty that Imal had been the recurrence of Daedalus and though they knew not how, so was she.   
  
Her family set her up as the head, displacing the elder based system they’d operated off of before. In their minds, she was merely an extension of Daedalus, more years in her life, and that rendered her the eldest. She was gifted with planets from families she’d never heard from before, and people travelled from around Ouros and their local colonies to see her.   
  
The Sen clan adorned her with flowers and put her in a temple of solid gold and treated her lavishly.  They worshipped her, and for seven hundred and forty six years forced her to remain a child. Rivka didn’t know how, but through some black, arcane process, they sowed new cells over hers, sewed new life into her tired bones.   
  
The bones of a girl forever in her eighth year that were cracked and broken by insurgents.   
  
They feared the dominance of the Sen clan.  
They took it out on their goddess. **  
**


	4. Quartus: Maridia Atal

The Sen Dynasty priests for hundreds of years prophesied that when Daedalus Quartus occurred, they would not recognize her.   
  
Still, the House of Sen searched violently.  
  
They were a military clan and their influence was spread far and wide. They’d built armies out of planets they’d conquered and raised millions to fight for them. Manpower was not an issue, range was. Aegis, now out from under their rule, forbade them to search. They ignored them and cut a swath through the universe that to the modern age has not recovered. They conquered and killed and searched for the Quartic one they thought would complete them. They waged a holy war against all those who stood in their way.  
  
A century passed.  
Then three,  
then seven,  
and shortly after, a millenia.   
Two.   
Three.  
  
Nothing in the lives of those who now lived for hundreds of years with ease, but everything to the fervent worshippers of a lost genetic code. Some Sen families went as far as to try to clone their goddess from bits of her past lives. They were executed as heretics, their creations shut away in monasteries on far-flung planets.   
  
The military scientists were tasked with creating new beings to hunt down the Mistress of the House of Sen: Half-men with the senses of wolves, capable of tracking scents over an entire planet, a race of people with the innate ability to recognize royalty.  
  
They found her, finally, in the three thousand seven hundred and fifty-third year of their search.   
  
And she was a disappointment.   
  
Forty years old -actually forty. She’d never undergone a renewal process-, six children running about her home and terribly, terribly frazzled, Maridia Atal was not ready to be a goddess. She was a mine worker on one of the lower Sen families’ moons, mining some rare rock. She was burly and brash and not at all refined. They tried to give her her crown, and she told them right where they could shove it. She refused to come back to Ouros, so they’d settled around her, building up a small empire. Or as much of one as Maridia would let them.   
  
She wasn’t a fan of being worshipped.  
She gave the tiaras they made her to her children.  
She took the heavenly feasts they offered and used them to feed the peasant mining families around them  
She even still went to work.  
  
No, they didn’t recognize this strange woman with their goddess’s face, but they could respect her.  
When she contracted a rare illness and ordered them not to sew her into health, they let her pass. They took care of her children.

 


	5. Quintus: Dendris Atal Sen

The children born from the Atal clan within the House of Sen had always been more suited for the military life their people chose to lead. They were bigger, faster, stronger and directly descended from one of the recurrences of Daedalus, an honor only two of the nine clans could claim. Still, despite their hardiness and readiness to serve, they were only partial heirs to the House of Sen’s fortune.   
  
They were half-breeds, born from peasants and beggars, despite their matriarch’s noble stock. They’d been bred into the fabric of the Sen families, but only somewhat. They had not been given their own clan so much as driven away by the others.  
  
They’d been relegating to temple guarding duty.   
  


Dendris wished she could guard temples.

 **  
**She'd been six when they'd found out what...who she was; she'd only managed to complete one year of her training. She was the fifth incarnation of a goddess, of course they wouldn’t allow her to strain herself. They’d had their fill of strong-willed deities when her predecessor had worked herself to death. She didn’t want to work herself to death, she just wanted…  
  
She just wanted to help.  
  
They let her age until she was grey, and kept her edging up against the abyss. She was happy with her wrinkles and the creaks in her bones.   
  
It turned out that she didn’t want to guard temples so much as keep them sacred.  
  
She dressed like her attendants, she followed the sacred holidays.   
  
She studied and fasted and taught her people. She kept them in peace with a soft word, and turned away those who would do them harm with love. The House of Sen was at rest and they remained so for the next twenty thousand years. **  
**


	6. Sexta: Nymeria Syrena Sen

It made sense that she’d be born to the clan of priestesses after the life her previous self had led. Her turn-over period was remarkable, too, only twenty years after her predecessor’s death. She was a marvel, and the elders attributed it to how close her prior had been to the temple and their ways. They tried to force her to be just like her, but the goddess of that age knew that love was something that needed to be freely given, not locked up behind heavy doors and adorned in gold.   
  
She went out to her people.   
  
Young and old, human and splice alike, she embraced them and called them her children. She was known as Na Abranna, The Mother, and for almost nine thousand years, she was. The sixth recurrence of Daedalus Sen had no children of her own, but she took in all those she could. On planet after planet she set up hospitals, farming communities and safe houses for the poor. She eliminated illnesses that had plagued her people for centuries and poured all of her offerings into medical research.   
  
But even with all of her might, she couldn’t stop all of her children’s pain. In the end she grew weary of the universe and it’s drudgery. She let herself grow old.


	7. Septimo: Narcissa Faustus Sen

Her father and mother had both been Ouran Senators prior to finding out that their daughter was the chosen one. They’d had to quit because of the unfair advantage of a goddess incarnate potentially showing favor to them during elections.   
  
Narcissa didn’t give a quark what her parents did. She had more important things on her mind. It had been nearly three thousand years since Daedalus Sexta wasted away into nothingness and everyone in the galaxy expected another loving, caring mother goddess who’d hold their hands and lead them through the darkness.  
  
Narcissa was not her predecessor, and everyone soon found that out. She had parades thrown in her honor, set up golden altars in every capital city on every planet she owned, she bought stocks in Abrasax Industries, Kyrin Universal and The Omega Company and the wealth of her House soared. In her heart, the seventh recurrence of Daedalus Sen was a politician and she did what she needed to do to save face and keep her favorites comfortable. She smiled and waved and killed who she needed to.  
  
She was not loved, but she made her House rich. In her time they doubled their planetary holdings, tripled the amount of Splices they exported and their military grew by 48%. She might not have been nice, but she got them what they wanted. **  
**


	8. Octo: Zera and ZIlla Flora Sen

They didn’t know what to do with the two girls from the farming clan.   
  
Those of Clan Flora among the House of Sen were known for having large families, no surprise, and with the sheer amount of genes running through that clan on a daily basis, it was expected that sooner or later the goddess would emerge from their midst. The priests had not, however, been prepared for two of them. Two little Daedalus’s rolling around in the mud and raising vegetables with their seven older siblings.   
  
People would later joke about how two Daedalus’s had come: One to actually be their goddess and one to make up for Narcissa. They said it privately. Such jokes were borderline blasphemy and one did not insult the dual-natured Daedalus and escape with their life.  
  
The twins more than made up for their predecessors lax rule and they went to war. They conquered, they did not ask like Narcissa, nor did they deal in politics. They were absolute and their rule would be respected. In the end, they were their own undoing. Each believing the other was trying to end the **ir seven thousand year reign, they executed each other, face to face on a hostile planet.  
**


	9. Nona: Atalia Karther Singh Atal Sen

If ever there was a Queen among the recurrences of Daedalus, it was Nona and she was loved. She had all of the ability to command respect that her predecessors had, but none of the bloodlust. She was a woman of military service, but held no lust for planetary holdings in her heart. She only made war when necessary and believed that Diplomacy could turn away much anger. She lived for what seemed to be an eternity, forever held as a young woman. She was their empress, the crown jewel of the House of Sen and greatly revered throughout the galaxy. She ran her family’s armies with care and earned them much profit.  
  
As a favor to the one she loved, she agreed to unite their people in order to hold control over a majority of the universe, but instead of being wed to Seraphi, she was sent to her eldest son. She resented him for centuries, rarely speaking to him and only when absolutely necessary. In her own time she came to be interested in him, and from that interest came...if not love, then an understanding.  He was her favored one and she gave him her heart.  
  
But the heart of a goddess who seeded and harvested whole galaxies before your birth was not easy to hold, and even her affection for her could not stop her from going out and quelling rebellions in her planets. She’d always thought a hands-on, personal approach was best when dealing with her people.  
  
In the end, they murdered her. They dragged her body through the streets and defaced her.  
  
She’d been with child. **  
**


	10. Decimus: Daedalus Decima Seneca Sen

None of this was her’s.   
  
Not the name, not the title, not even the crown she wore.  
  
They’d begun screening babies as soon as Nona had died and they didn’t allow themselves time to mourn. They’d tamped down their sadness and had piled expectations on her so heavy they bent her back.  
  
Everyone wanted something.   
  
The Priests wanted her to be Daedalus Quintus.  
The Politicians wanted her to be Daedalus Septimo.  
The People wanted her to be Daedalus Sexta,  
And the Soldiers wanted Secundus.   
In short, they wanted her to be another Daedalus Nona, but she couldn’t. She wasn’t able. Everyone wanted a past reincarnation, and nobody just wanted her. Just Decima. She’d been saddled with this weight since her birth when that screen had shown up green and proclaimed that she was a recurrence. She wondered, sometimes, if she’d ever truly been herself, or if she’d always been like this, just shades of previous lives thrown together and mixed up. No one knew her.   
  
Daedalus had been born ten times and died nine, but only once had she lived.   
  
  
  
  


  
  
  


 


End file.
